Autocar February 19, 2020

LAST YEAR, THE UK’s small, specialist manufacturers – including the likes of Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley, McLaren, Morgan and Lotus – saw their collective production grow by 16.2% to 30,756 cars built. With the wider doom and gloom around the UK car industry, those figures are a timely reminder that so many of our car makers are truly world class and hugely desirable to buyers globally. One such success story is the Rolls-Royce Cullinan, our road test subject this week (p32). Although many choose not to look past its design, the Cullinan proves to be an excellent car to drive and a hugely appealing ownership proposition for those who can afford it. It also helped Rolls in 2019 to achieve its best annual sales in its 116-year history. It’s often easy to consider…

GOT A STORY? Email our news editor lawrence.allan@haymarket.com “The M2 is scheduled to go on sale in the UK in 2022 with a detuned version of the new M4’s engine” BMW has given the production green light to a new rear-wheel-drive M2 performance coupé, as part of a future compact M car line-up that will include a four-wheel-drive M2 Gran Coupé and a 1 Series with more than 400bhp. The second-generation M2 coupé, which takes the internal codename G87, is scheduled to go on sale in the UK in 2022. It will bring with it a detuned version of BMW M’s latest six-cylinder petrol engine, sourced from the soon-to-be-revealed new M3 and M4 and the recently introduced X3 M and X4 M. This twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre petrol unit, dubbed S58, replaces the similarly configured S55 used by…

Ah, the strange world of the car enthusiast. BMW will make us an efficient small coupé or saloon or even a front-wheel-drive hatchback. It’ll also offer us a weird combination of the above for, say, coupé fans who need more than two doors. Or, if we’d prefer, it has a funky front-engined, rear-drive fabric-roofed roadster kind of thing. Y’know: a sports car. What more do we want? Well, not that. ‘Please give us something that looks like a boxy old two-door saloon, guys, and stick a massive engine in it. At least, as massive an engine as one can get away with these days. That’ll do nicely.’ I don’t know what it is about the peculiar old-school appeal of an M2, but I feel it, too. What I like about the current M2…

The new high-performance Volkswagen Golf R has been spotted testing without camouflage, a fortnight before the unveiling of the latest Golf GTI. Spy photographers saw a prototype undergoing winter testing near the Arctic Circle. Their images reveal that the new hot hatchback is sticking with the formula of its predecessor, with understated performance the order of the day. Telltale R design cues include a quartet of tailpipes, an enlarged lower air intake and R-specific alloy wheels covering performance brakes with blue-painted calipers. Although not yet confirmed, power outputs for all of the hot Mk8 Golf variants (the GTI, GTI TCR, GTD, GTE and R) leaked out last month via a slide from an internal presentation. The slide revealed that the R will put out 329bhp – a 33bhp increase over today’s car – from…

The all-new i20, revealed ahead of its public debut at next month’s Geneva motor show, represents the start of a “revolutionary and ambitious” new design language for Hyundai. The third-generation Vauxhall Corsa rival is set to go on sale in May and introduces what Hyundai describes as a theme of “sensuous sportiness” that will be applied across the rest of its line-up in due course. The latest i10 city car features a watered-down version of the i20’s angular look, while the facelifted i30 (see below) and new Tucson SUV for 2021 will adopt a similar design approach. Further to the adoption of distinctive creases and other styling details new to Hyundai, the latest i20 is proportionally different from its predecessor, being 30mm wider, 5mm longer and 24mm lower. Its wheelbase has been lengthened…

THE NEXT ELECTRIC Kia, due to arrive in 2021, will sit above the existing e-Niro and Soul EV and be based on the Imagine concept that was revealed at last year’s Geneva motor show. The zero-emissions model will take a new name and design, rather than be a variant of an existing model. Kia’s policy is to have stand-alone model lines for its electrified vehicles. The Korean manufacturer recently announced a plan to launch 11 electric vehicles by 2025. This is part of its £19 billion strategy to transform into a maker of electrified vehicles and mobility solutions within the next five years. Kia currently sells two electric models, the e-Niro and Soul EV, both compact crossovers. Adding a larger one will help the brand reach its goal of taking a 6.6% share…